The indians in north america - indians today

Ten years after the end of the Indian Wars – 1900, the last major event in Indian history was the Wounded Knee massacre (also on this page), the whites – politicians, scientists. – believes that the future prospects for the Indian population are bleak and that "red man" is dying. The number of Indians had decreased rapidly, entire peoples had been exterminated and the tribes only lived in place names, mountains, waterfalls. continued. For the white American, the savages were gone and civilization could finally expand.

237,000 Indians were registered in a census in 1900 in the United States (other sources have different numbers), in Canada 101,000 Indians a year later.

The consequences of this decimation were illnesses, the influence of alcohol and victims from the wars – about half a million people had become victims of war in four hundred years alone. Genocide was not the official policy, but was accepted approvingly. The old and the weak did not survive the forced resettlement, the expulsion from the homeland and the hopelessness led to the population decline as well as the loss of the old economic forms and the disintegration of the traditional communities. Due to the misery and poor medical care in the reservations, life expectancy and the birth rate dropped dramatically.

The Indian population had been severely decimated for the reasons described above. But how many people lived in America before the Europeans invaded? This is a question that no one can ever answer exactly. For a long time, one million people in North America were assumed. But this number can no longer be maintained today. In the 1960s, the low population density was questioned. On the basis of demographic and ecological reconstructive as well as ideological projections, it was assumed that about 18 million people must have lived on the North American continent. But these estimates also make people wonder. This is simply due to the fact that significantly more people leave more prehistoric traces than have been found to date. That is why the indigenous population is between 2 and 8 million people – but this is not very precise.

One thing is for sure that the Indian population has increased again since the turn of the century. 350,000 people were registered in 1950, in 1990 it was just over 2 million people. In 1996, including the Metis, 800,000 Indians were counted in Canada.

Better living conditions and the increased courage to live led to an increase in the number of births and a lower mortality rate. People who became Indians through identity migration are also included. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) therefore estimates that little more than 1 million people as Indians in 1990 fall within their area of responsibility.

How the numbers are estimated before the invasion of the whites, so it is still the same with today’s information on the Indian population.

Who is now counted as an Indian is described in the introduction and is given again here.
It is not an easy question to answer. If you live, live, speak and believe like ancestors like an Indian, you are not yet definitely an Indian. For the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) is an Indian who is 50 percent (in exceptional cases 25%) of Indian descent and belongs to an officially recognized tribe. However, each tribe still has its own definition. For the US Census Bureau, it is an Indian who wants to be. The will is almost as important as the ethnicity.

Not all strains are recognized by the federal government. Those who signed contracts with the British during the colonial period did not receive this recognition. The same happened to the tribes who never signed contracts with states or the government in Washington.

Membership of a tribe or groups of people is not uniformly regulated. Each tribe determines itself. In the past, tribes were groups of people who were related through relatives – descent, marriage, adoption – who lived together and who filled the group. A white prisoner could become a member of the tribe if he wanted to. Serious crimes often led to exclusion from the tribe.

The guidelines for the descent criteria were different for the strains. Numerous tribes considered people to be members of the community even though they had not inherited this membership from their mother or father. In other Indian ethnic groups, a person was a tribe if they were connected to the tribe by parentage on the maternal or paternal line.
At the Seneca, where the mother lineage applies, there were numerous members with white fathers and grandfathers, whereas if the mother was a white woman and even lived in the longhouse of the reservation, she did not receive tribal membership, as did her child. Other tribes made their tribal affiliation dependent on whether the parents lived on the reservation at the time of birth. B. the Salish around 1950. Ten years later it was only necessary to descend from a tribe member or to have a quarter of Indian blood.

The USA practiced this criterion from 1918 onwards. Some tribes today adopted the pratic.

Centuries before the conquest of the New World, the cultural awareness of a common identity had developed in Europe, at least on the basis of Christianity. This indigenous peoples of North America lacked this sense of national unity. Not even a word could describe the totality of the American indigenous population. Cultural similarities were limited to similar regional adaptations to habitats. When the white invaders invaded America, the realization that despite the differences of the peoples faced the same fate gradually matured.

What all peoples first noticed was the loss of their tribal area. Large parts of the country had already changed hands in the 18th century. The intruders’ goods and conveniences of life were so attractive to numerous tribal members that they were own Traditions became alien. It was not until 1830 that the American government moved to settle the tribes in Oklahoma in the Indian Territory, and resistance from the multinational mixture began to stir. Political currents such as the peyote religion and musical styles emerged. – but not in all parts of North America. Numerous pan-Indian currents developed in the boarding schools, from 1879 onwards the children of different tribes were brought together, who grew up together and long-term relationships emerged from which the Indian movement emerged in the 20th century. It was not Indians who adhered to the old traditions, but those who stood between the Indian culture and that of the whites. They were also the ones who recognized that only the common ground against an overpowering opponent makes you strong.

The majority of the American Indians sees itself as belonging to a people – the Indians – and has taken note of this with different arrangements.

The Indians once passed on messages through smoke signals – today they are on the Internet, using the radio as a medium to pass on information, music, entertainment and culture. The KTNN – the Navaho broadcaster – is on the air twelve hours a day and when there are life appearances in supermarkets, gas stations, community centers and schools, people come from a hundred miles away.

There are also indigenous newspapers. The "Cherokee Phoenix" appeared from 1828 to 1834. This sheet accompanied the tribe that gave the newspaper its name, even during the forced relocation to the Oklahoma Indian Territory. Subscribers were across North America and even Europe. In 1834, the Cherokee Phoenix was discontinued due to the effects of the relocation and various political factors. Wassaja – in German "signal" was the newspaper of Carlos Montezuma – a Yavapai Indian who lived from 1866 – 1923 and who published the paper from 1916. The newspaper was published monthly until 1922. The civil rights movement really got the Indians’ media work going in the 1960s. From 1960 to 1969 there were about 300 Indian newspapers. The best known was the "Akwesasne Notes".

From the first half of the 1970s, radio stations KYUK in Alaska and KTDB in New Mexico were created. There are thirty channels in the United States today. Tribal governments invest in this media as well as in professional websites. Political influence and open pressure often complicate the work of Indian journalists. The journalists perceive their work as a difficult balancing act between the fronts. B. goes to casinos in the reservations.

White America has seen since the end of the Indian Wars that the indigenous people had become peaceful. Now they expected to die out or become part of the majority population. However, this did not happen, the Indians revived in the 1930s. The Second World War caused this development to subside again. After the war the politicians were of the opinion that the Indian problem could finally be solved by the exemplary use of the Indians. A large-scale relocation program to the cities began. Furthermore, the claims of the tribes from contracts of the 19th century should be settled, and measures to end the special relationships of the tribes with the federal government were another source of conflict. The result was a resurgence of tribal resistance.

The Indian Claims Commission examined the fulfillment of the land transfer and peace treaties in 1947. Good lawyers have made substantial payments that have generally strengthened the indigenous community.

When the direct assumption of the BIA ended, the indigenous population was exposed to the arbitrariness of the states and their livelihood was endangered. Some tribes had been officially dissolved due to their so-called degree of civilization. Tribes like Menomimee in the state of Wisconsin were among them, whose members now sank into an economic catastrophe. In the 1960s, civil rights movements – first initiated by students – also brought about a renaissance among the Indians. The pattern of these movements was African-American in character. The so-called city Indians took the Red Power movement as an example, the willingness to use violence brought the politicians on the scene. The actions of the American Indian Movement (AIM), founded in 1970 in Minneapolis, drew public attention. The radical message did not reach the attention that was expected in the conservative reservations. This only aggravated the situation. There were power struggles between the members of the AIM, which led to the radicals losing their influence in the 1980s. Many of the rebels left the movement or went into tribal politics.

However, the spirit of resistance survived and became part of the new Indian consciousness at the beginning of the third millennium.

The situation in the reservations was bad. The Indian peoples once lived as hunters, fishermen and collectors. The white man robbed her of her livelihood and settled it on land which is not suitable for survival. The reservations are also far from industry and markets, the traffic situation is bad and there are hardly any jobs. Companies could rarely be located. As the population increased, the situation became even more catastrophic. The result was economic hardship. 90 percent of the population was unemployed, in a wealthy country like the United States.

When the reserves were set up, it was certainly not known that the energy reserves of the entire country lay below the barren country. Since land use is in the hands of the Ministry of the Interior, particularly favorable contracts with the energy industry for the mining of coal, uranium and oil could be negotiated. As tribes’ ownership increased, tribal politicians hoped to improve their situation significantly during the energy crisis in the 1970s and early 1980s when prices rose. However, since the world market prices for oil fell quickly, the land on the reservations was destroyed by open-cast coal mining and uranium was contaminated with drinking water. However, hoped for profits failed to materialize.

Now the reservation Indians have discovered a new source of income. Since their country is located in the United States, but is not subject to the laws of the state, they committed to selling cigarettes and gasoline tax-free. However, this was only there possible, where the Indian land is near white towns. Once the tax-free sale was only to benefit the Indians, which is why the police tried to stop the smuggling.

In the heads of clever Indian bosses, however, a new idea arose, they set up casinos on their reservations. Gambling bingo became a hit, which charities and churches also use to fund their projects. The states tried to ban these efforts. The reason for them was to prevent organized crime in the reserves. Legal proceedings were even sought. The tribes, on the other hand, were supported by the federal government in order to save public funds for the renovation of the reservations. The courts voted in favor of the casinos, so that a federal law was passed in 1988 regulating the operation of casinos in the reservations. As a result, numerous reservations created bingo palaces, some of which generate a net profit of several hundred million dollars a year. Even reservations that were almost abandoned by the tribesmen because of their poor economic situation are now making huge profits from the game of bingo.

You can also find out about the topic at "The Indians in the 20th Century and The Indians in the 21st Century" Further information.

The indians in north america – indians today

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